This American Girl, 18-recipe theme cookbook is historically accurate, thoroughly researched, and well documented. Evert ties the information and recipes to events in the "Addy" books (Pleasant), which revolve around a girl who, with her mother, escaped from slavery. Breakfast dishes include grits, pork sausage and gravy, buttermilk biscuits (made with lard), fried apples, and scrambled eggs. Recipes are well illustrated with full-color drawings and photographs and methods are clearly described. Dinners are heavy on bacon and fried foods. Addy's favorites, such as chicken shortcake, collard greens, cornbread, potato salad, lemonade, peach cobbler, pound cake, and shortbread are included. Every page includes a factoid from the time period, augmented by archival black-and-white photographs. Descriptions of an Emancipation Celebration and a Juneteenth Party appear at the end of the book, along with suggested games, foods, table settings, clothing, decorations, and music. This is in no way a heart-healthy offering, but it is a faithful description of dishes of the late 1800s and a wonderful asset to historical cooking sections

Addy's Cookbook is part of the American Girls dolls series. My daughter enjoyed this series. I could see how the doll's sparked her imagination. The cookbooks in this series encouraged her to cook, and in doing so, learn more about the times, the places, and people from which the dolls were taken. ( )

Though this is definitely a children's book, the recipes are still good. I especially like the potato salad; it's very simple, but everyone I've made it for has enjoyed it.

The book is clearly designed for parents and children to work through together, so it could provide some good opportunities for parent/child interaction. The little factoids are also rather interesting, and help add context to food from another time period. And of course, this is an especially fun book for anyone who follows the American Girl books or who has one of the dolls. ( )